Exercise your Bullshit Detector
Lorna Jane is using “distasteful, cheap and exploitative” marketing techniques, leveraging COVID-19 fears to try to sell its latest activewear range, according to a marketing expert. The company’s new range – LJ Shield – is ‘anti-virus activewear’ which it is claimed has a chemical-free treatment applied to it that will protect its wearer from viruses and bacteria. “LJ Shield breaks through the membrane shell of any toxic diseases, bacteria or germs that come into contact with it, not only killing that microbe but preventing it from multiplying into any more,” the company said. After a public outcry they were forced to walk that back to ‘anti-bacterial’.
“The two things wrong with this campaign: it’s unethical, and it’s untrue,” marketing and ethics specialist Associate Professor Jana Bowden, Chair of Ethics at Macquarie Business School said. “It’s a strategy designed to create panic in consumers minds and tap into consumer anxiety. Lorna Jane is creating anxiety and insecurity around a previously non-existent product issue and then jumping in to offer a solution with their product – it’s a distasteful and cheap attempt to grab sales amidst a pandemic and genuine climate of consumer fear. It’s distasteful, it’s all smoke and mirrors and, hopefully, smart consumers won’t have a bar of it.”
The claims also caught the attention of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. The product simply will not do what it claims, college president Harry Nespolon said. “If you spray their product onto any fabric and expect that it will act as a ‘shield of protection’ for you by breaking through the ‘membrane shell of any toxic diseases’ I have some bad news for you – this will not happen,” Dr Nespolon said. “The only thing that will be ‘terminated’ by the ‘shield particles’ is the money in your bank account.”
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has issued three infringement notices totalling $39,960 in fines for alleged unlawful advertising in relation to COVID-19. The TGA alleged Lorna Jane represented its ‘anti-virus activewear’ for therapeutic use and therefore believed it was a therapeutic good within the meaning of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.
new quantum physics discovery for Bridgewater!
We’ll let you try to work out what the difference is here, because apparently two lanes in each direction can be either a two-lane bridge or a four-lane bridge. This is making it very difficult to choose between the options!
What the Fricker’s going on?
Sometimes flogs hide where you least expect them. David Fricker, Director General of the National Archives of Australia, led the failed 4-year effort by the NAA to stop us seeing what are now known as the Palace Letters. Then, on the eve of their release, he tried to spin them. In a weird stunt we had a Murdoch journalist given advanced access; this person was then posting copies of the stuff all over Twitter before official release.
Suffice to say David, we think all media should be given access, or not at all. And given that the NAA was eventually ordered to release the documents by the High Court of Australia, was it a contempt of that court?!
Will the Real Peter Gutwein please stand up?
Who is he? We know, we think, well kind of. It seems that not everyone out there is familiar. Winston Peters, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, was recently in touch with our leader regarding the proposed trans-Tasman travel bubble. He was so impressed he referred to Peter Gutwein as Peter Weinstein. The NZ Herald was similarly inaccurate and didn’t bother to correct it.
The conflation of Gutwein with Weinstein is unfortunate, given the conviction of film producer Harvey Weinstein earlier this year. That Weinstein received a 23 year sentence for first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.
Wait till the Kiwis hear about our Deputy Premier, Jeremy Rockweiler.
Royally hopeless
We received the above – err, not even sure what it is – from marketing agency Candice PR this week. We know that mistakes happen from time to time, we get it. But this blather manages to pack at least 8 spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes into 200 words. And this is coming from a ‘professional’ PR agency who is pitching to prepare promotional text and imagery and as a service for your money. Take a bow, Candice PR, but you’ll never take our money.
Speaking of the royals, they must be quaking in their silver slippers after receiving this blast from what is generally known in this country as a ‘tv celebrity’. Hold the gun carriage, we’ve upset Lisa Wilkinson! As if you needed any further reason to ignore the vomit-inducing pap that passes for news coverage on Australian commercial television.
A lousy $10 million they didn’t ask for
Foxtel will get $10 million to support the broadcast of women’s sports and ‘niche’ competitions, it was revealed this week. Communications minister Paul Fletcher and Sports minister Richard Colbeck announced on Wednesday that the federal government had allocated the sum to Fox Sports, ”to continue its support of coverage of women’s, niche and other under-represented sport.” It is an extension of a previous $30 million grant to the broadcaster in 2017. Questions were raised over that decision, after the government declined to answer why and how the funding was allocated and spent.
You won’t be able to see any of this ‘under-represented sport’ unless you’re one of the 5.5 million Foxtel subscribers; for context, Australia’s population is approximately 26 million. If the Foxtel number seems like a lot, given these might be household subscriptions, bear in mind that relative newcomer Netflix has two and a half times as many subscribers at well over 13 million.
So when the Australian government owns a huge digital and free to air network of its own, the ABC, why is it doling out cash to a competitor to produce programming for a veritable handful of viewers? At the same time as it is reeling in the ABC budget? Why indeed?
Slasher on the loose
If the sharks, the crocodiles, the deadly snakes and the terrifying spiders don’t get you, Peter Dutton’s Psycho Force at the international border will.
No wonder visitor numbers are down.
This is an TT occasional column calling out public relations spin, egregious stunts, media manipulation and downright sloppy reporting. The ‘news’ doesn’t just magically come into being, it is created. We want to lift the lid on some of the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes. Tips are welcome! Send your information in to [email protected].
